Magnetic Electricity for telegraphic purposes has nearly superseded
pigeons. Till very recently a regular “service” of Carrier Pigeons
existed between London and Paris, for the quick conveyance of such
intelligence as was likely to affect the funds. The French capital was
the focus of the system, in exemplification of the adage that “all roads
lead to Paris,” and pigeon expresses branched off in all directions from
that city even to St. Petersburg. Relays of them are still kept up
between Paris and Madrid, besides a few other places. The most
celebrated relays of winged messengers were those which bore
intelligence between Antwerp, Brussels, and Paris. In the former city a
society of pigeon fanciers, for amusement and emulation, keeps up an
establishment of them. Their doings are amusingly chronicled in Kohl’s
last book of Travels, _Reisen in den Neiderlanden_.
Having been invited to join some members of the Society of Antwerp
Pigeon Fanciers, he wended his way about five o’clock one morning
through the silent streets of the ancient city. A few members of the
association, he says, who directed the expedition, were followed by
servants carrying two flat baskets, in which the pigeons, about to be
dispatched, were carefully deposited. As we proceeded along, my
companions related to me some particulars concerning the carrier
pigeons, or “_pigeons voyageurs_,” as these winged messengers are
designated. The carriers are a peculiar race of pigeons endowed with
powers of memory and observation which enable them to find their way to
any place by a course along which they have once flown. Every kind of
pigeon is not capable of being taught to do this. Of the methods adopted
by the Antwerp association for training and teaching these carriers, I
learnt the following particulars.
Supposing a dispatch of pigeons is to be sent off from Antwerp to
Brussels or Paris, the birds are kept for some time at the place of
arrival or terminus, and during that interval are plentifully fed and
carefully tended. By little excursive flights, taken day by day, they
are gradually familiarised with different parts of the town in which
they have been nurtured, and with places in its vicinity. When
sufficiently practised in finding their way to short distances, the
pigeons are conveyed to a station some leagues from their dove-cote.
Here they are kept for a time without food, and then set to flight. On
taking wing, they rapidly soar to a vast height, scanning the line of
the horizon to discern the church spires, or other lofty points which
enable them to distinguish their home. Some of the less intelligent
birds lose their way, and are seen no more. Those who return home (to
Paris, or wherever else it may be), are again plentifully fed. Then
after a little space of time they are carried in baskets some miles
further in the direction of Antwerp; again they are put on a short
allowance of food and negligently tended. When the pigeons depart on
their next flight, the Parisian church spires have sunk far beneath the
horizon; however, they soon succeed in combining that portion of the
route with which they are acquainted with the part as yet unknown to
them. They hover round and round in the air, seeking to catch one or
other thread that is to guide them through the labyrinth. Some find it;
others do not.
In this manner the carrier pigeons are practised bit by bit along the
whole distance between Paris and Antwerp. They attentively observe, or
study, and learn by heart, each conspicuous object which serves them as
a land-mark on the way. It is usual to exercise particular pigeons
between the two cities, which it is wished to connect by this sort of
postal communication; and it is necessary to have a certain number for
going, and others for returning. After the birds have been accustomed to
inhabit a certain district, and to travel by a particular route, it is
not found easy to divert them from their wonted course, and to make them
available in any other direction.
My friends, the members of the Antwerp Society, assured me that their
pigeons had frequently flown from Paris to Antwerp in six or seven
hours; consequently in a much shorter time than that in which the same
journey is performed by the railway train. By bird’s flight, the
distance between the two cities is forty miles (German[1]), and
therefore it follows that these carrier pigeons must travel at the rate
of from twenty to thirty English miles an hour. It is scarcely
conceivable that they should possess the strength of wing and vigour of
lungs requisite for such a flight; and it is no unfrequent occurrence
for several of them to die on arriving at their journey’s end. In stormy
weather the loss of two-thirds of the birds dispatched on such a long
flight, is a disaster always to be counted on. It is, therefore, usual
to send off a whole flock, all bearing the same intelligence, so as to
ensure the chance of one at least reaching its destination.
Footnote 1:
The German mile includes nearly three and a half English miles.
The pigeon expedition which I saw dispatched from Antwerp, consisted of
about thirty birds. The point of departure was a somewhat elevated site
in the outskirts of the city. A spot like this is always made choice of,
lest the pigeons, on first taking flight, should lose themselves amidst
the house-tops and church spires of the city with which they are
unacquainted; and by having the open country before them, they are
enabled to trace out their own land-marks. When the pigeons are to be
sent off on lengthened journeys, it is usual to convey them to the point
of departure at a very early hour in the morning:—by this means they are
dispatched in quietude, unmolested by an assemblage of curious gazers,
and they have the light of a whole day before them for their journey.
Carrier pigeons do not pursue their flight after night-fall, being then
precluded by the darkness from seeing the surrounding country with
sufficient distinctness to enable them to discern their resting-places,
or stations. In the obscurity of night the whole flock might light on
strange dove-cotes, and be captured; an accident which would occasion
the total failure of a postal expedition, for the few pigeons who might
escape capture, would, on the return of morning, be bewildered, and
unable to recombine their plan of route.
Pigeons are not suited for postal communication between places so remote
one from another that the journey cannot be completed in a single day.
If it can be accomplished in one flight, so much the better. Antwerp and
Paris are, I believe, the extreme points of distance within which
carrier pigeons are capable of journeying with certainty.
Herr Kohl gives no account of these stations or stages. We once saw one
at Montrieul, the first station beyond Dover, towards Paris. The town
stands on a high eminence, and is well adapted for the purpose. The cote
was on the roof of a _café_. It was a square apartment with a flat
ceiling, in which was cut a small door or trap: on the inside of this
was fixed a small bell. If a Dover pigeon had alighted on the trap, the
bell would have rung, and called the attention of an attendant always in
waiting. The pigeon would have been secured, the dispatch taken from
under its wing, and the messenger put into its cage. In a twinkling the
cyphered paper would be fastened under the wing of the Beauvais or
Amiens pigeon, and it would be sent off. On arriving at its destination,
the same formula would be gone through, and the Paris pigeon would take
the dispatch to its destination. Although several pigeons, even in fine
weather, are entrusted with the same message, two seldom arrive at the
common destination at the same time, so that at each place the operation
we have described is frequently repeated, in order that at least one of
many dispatches may be certain of arriving at the destination.
These establishments were costly. Besides the great number of pigeons
necessary to be kept at each station, some of the single birds were
valuable. Fifty and sixty pounds was sometimes given for a clever
pigeon. Those between Dover and Montrieul, and _vice versâ_, were among
the most valuable, for none but sharp-sighted messengers could find
their way across the Channel; few flights were sent away without some
members of it being lost.
But to return to the Antwerp pigeons—and to Mr. Kohl. Having, he
continues, reached the open, elevated spot before-mentioned, the flat
baskets carried by the servants were uncovered, and the little
_voyageurs_ rapidly winged their way upwards. The intelligence they were
to convey to Paris was written in little billets, fastened under their
wings. The pigeons I saw sent off had been brought in covered baskets
from Paris, and were as yet totally unacquainted with Antwerp and its
environs. Their ignorance of the locality was manifest in the wavering
uncertainty of their movements when they first took wing. On rising into
the air, they gathered closely together, like foreigners in a strange
country, and presently they steered their course along the confines of
the city, in a direction quite contrary to that of Paris. They then
soared upwards, spirally, and after several irregular movements (during
which they seemed to be looking for the right way, and hesitating which
course to take), they all suddenly darted off to south-west, directing
their rapid flight straight to Paris, as if gladly quitting inhospitable
Antwerp, where they had been scantily fed and carelessly tended.
As soon as the birds were fairly out of sight, the pigeon-trainers
proceeded homeward, not a little gratified by the conviction that their
fleet messengers, with the intelligence they bore under their wings,
would outstrip the speed of a railway train which had started some time
before them.
To me the most interesting point in the whole scene was the interval
(about the space of a quarter of an hour) during which the pigeons
wavered to and fro, seeking their way in a state of uncertainty. That
appeared to me to be a wonderful manifestation of intelligence on the
part of the birds. It is frequently affirmed that the carrier pigeon
finds its way without the exercise of intelligence or observation, and
merely by the aid of some incomprehensible instinct; but, from my own
observations of the Antwerp pigeons, I am convinced that this is a
mistake. Another circumstance tending to show that the birds are guided
by something more than mere instinct, is, that during foggy weather the
employment of carrier pigeons is found to be almost as impracticable as
the use of the optical telegraph. But though it is not the practice to
dispatch carrier pigeons at times when the atmosphere is very thickly
obscured by fog, yet, owing to the keenness and accuracy of the visual
power of these birds, which is much more perfect than that of man, they
have an advantage over the telegraph. The latter is wholly useless when
the atmosphere is only slightly obscured; but carrier pigeons frequently
soar quite above the region of mist, and are thus enabled to trace their
course without interruption. Stations of carrier pigeons are established
in most of the principal towns of Belgium.
The members of the Antwerp pigeon-training society, whom I accompanied
on the occasion above described, were citizens of the middle class of
society. But in Belgium, pigeon-training has its attractions even for
persons of rank and wealth, many of whom are enthusiastic pigeon
fanciers; indeed, pigeon-flying is as fashionable an amusement in
Belgium as horse racing in England. Prizes, consisting of sums of money
as high as sixty thousand francs, are frequently won in matches of
pigeons—to say nothing of the betting to which those matches give
occasion.
* * * * *
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